(A journey through life set in Japan)

In which I shouldn’t care…

This should be an incident that I shouldn’t fucking care about at all. However, it’s bugging the ever loving shit out of me and I don’t know why. Perhaps a side effect of the anxious brain?

On Friday karaoke was so-so. Not the usual stellar crowd. However, there were a couple people worth talking to, so I talked to them. One guy I’ll call him Ru (short for Fucking Rude) spoke excellent English and was rather friendly. I myself am a super friendly person. I’ll talk to just about anyone and am kind to most people. However, for friendships I need a more serious connection. As you know, Rei is moving to Korea and Ryo is being a butt and so is my other friend, so I’m in the market for some new friends. Now I hadn’t necessarily considered Ru as a replacement friend, but I thought he was pretty cool, so I sent him a message on Meetup. The message was as follows:

“Hey! Nice to meet you last night!”

At no point in my message (as that was literally the whole message) or interaction with him on Friday was I rude, inappropriate, a bitch, overly flirtatious, or anything else offensive like that. I was kind and friendly. Now on Meetup, you can send people messages unless they opt out of that feature. That’s how Guiro and I became friends, and I’ve contacted some people via messages on Meetup. I don’t think there is anything unusual about doing so. If someone doesn’t want to receive messages, they can turn that feature off. I have encountered a number of Meetup members who have done so. That’s their prerogative. So I sent this message to Ru and he never responded to me. Okay fine. That’s a bit rude but whatever. Then I go on Meetup on my computer to post an event (since I run a very unpopular Meetup group), and I find that not only did Ru not respond to my message but he also blocked me on Meetup. What? Why? I was never anything other than kind and friendly to him. If he found it strange that I messaged him on the site, then he should turn off his messages. He had RSVP’d to the event and his name was listed under the event. It took zero detective work to find him. Was I out of line? Was it weird to send him a message? (People send me messages on Meetup, and I’ve never blocked anyone.) My final question is why is this bothering me so much? This Ru person isn’t anything to me. Perhaps I’m projecting due to the loss of other friends. That’s the only thing I can think of. It’s driving me crazy to not know why this person blocked me or what I did to deserve such rudeness, so I’d like to thank Ru to contributing to my anxiety. That fucker.

Something good that happened today was that I can start doing yoga again next month. Haruna got her yoga teaching certificate and wants to begin teaching classes. I recently met some new people who own a café and have a studio space above the café for rent. I put Haruna in touch with them, and today we hashed out the details for what will hopefully be a reoccurring yoga class. Haruna will do a practice run with me and one of her friends early next month and then teach an actual class open to anyone mid-October. I’m so excited especially because the studio is less than ten minutes from my house by bicycle (and it’s also easy to walk to in the event of a rainy day). Also, since Haruna is just starting out as a teacher and the studio rental isn’t so expensive, the classes will also be inexpensive. Gosh I haven’t done yoga since July (?) or June (?). It’s time to get back in the swing of things.

I suppose that’s it. Birthday is looming around the corner but first so is a trip to visit my old city and Artemis, Makoto, and Motoki. I’m super looking forward to this. I hope things are happy for you. Be well.